a blade at your neck
by Miss Mungoe
Summary: He loved his hair, but things were different now. Out with the old, in with the new, right?


AN: My take on the haircut.

Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite.

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**a blade at your neck**

**by Miss Mungoe **

It was the first time, Shinji reflected, that he had ever looked in a mirror and _not_ liked what he saw.

Hiyori's jibes were hardly exaggerated – he did spend a lot of time admiring his own reflection. It had been a routine of his for a good century, after all. He'd do it every morning in his quarters in the Fifth Division. And hell, if he was honest, he'd been doing it for as long as he could remember. Even before becoming a Captain, during his time at the Academy when he'd first started growing his hair out and his vanity had shot through the figurative roof, he'd spent more time in front of his looking glass than he had training.

But this morning he had awoken, not in his private quarters at the Division but in a nondescript room in an abandoned, ramshackle building in the human world; the realm that held such fascination for him for so many years. His new home, not as a captain of considerable regard, but as an outcast living in hiding. This morning, which had started out like any other morning – what with him spending a good hour in front of the mirror – there had been something..._wrong_ with his reflection, and it had taken him a good ten minutes of staring at himself to figure out what it was.

His hair.

The long and impossibly straight, blond hair that had been one of his trademark features for several decades both before and after becoming a Captain of the 13 Protection Squads. It was the one thing in his afterlife that he'd spent more time on than his division. It represented his status and his life in Soul Society, when he had been respected, admired and trusted by his fellow Shinigami. It represented Captain Hirako of the Fifth Squad. The man that had died on the night of Aizen's betrayal. Now he was simply Shinji, neither Shinigami or hollow. Something in between – twisted and unnatural.

_Vaizard._

He was no longer respected, admired or trusted by anyone, but an abomination in the eyes of the place and the people he had once called _home_ and _friends_.

He continued to stare at his reflection. The long hair looked...oddly out of place with the flamboyant shirt and silk tie, as opposed to the traditional shihakusho and captain's cloak. He averted his gaze to the sword in his hand and sighed, lifting it up to the back of his head. Reaching up with his free hand, he grasped his hair in a tight grip, bitter anticipation thrumming in his veins as he made his decision. For someone as vain as himself, it had been a tough one to make, but regardless of his injured vanity, it was also necessary.

Cutting his hair was just one of the many steps he would have to take into the new life they had been forced to live.

_Another sacrifice. _

The door to his room slammed open behind him, creating quite the ruckus in the otherwise silent warehouse and revealing a blonde menace of a girl wearing a bright red jumpsuit that did her no justice. Hiyori stepped inside without preamble, not bothering to knock or wait for him to tell her to _go ahead_, _have a seat, would you like a cup of tea while you're at it? _Although Shinji honestly hadn't expected anything else. The scowl on her face vanished for a split second and whatever biting remark she had prepared died on her tongue as she took in the sight of him, one hand holding his hair, the other his unsheathed zanpakutou. The moment of initial surprise passed quickly, though, and the scowl slipped easily back into place; an act of defense she had developed long before she'd even met him, to shield her emotions from the corrupted world she had once lived in, and had now been thrown right back into.

She watched him for an almost uncomfortably long lull, unusually silent for a girl like Sarugaki Hiyori, and Shinji wondered briefly where his previous determination had gone. He was tempted to put the sword back down.

Finally, she sighed, and walked over to stand behind him. "Ya need someone ta do it fer ya, dipshit, or it won't be even. Ya look ugly enough as it is," she muttered, although her voice lacked its usual edge. "Ya don't need a shitty hairdo to add to it."

He smirked bitterly, and loosened his grip on his two most treasured possessions.

And although easily half his size, she had seemingly no problem reaching up to grab his hair. Shinji didn't bother pointing out the rather noticeable wobble in her stance as she rose to stand on the very tips of her toes, and settled for an amused smirk in stead. He also didn't bother mentioning that he would never have allowed anyone but her to stand behind him, clearly out of balance and holding a blade to his neck, but he knew she was already aware of this.

Hiyori on the other hand, was trying her best to ignore the unexpected feelings that surged through her at the obvious show of trust when he'd handed her his sword; his precious zanpakutou that he would never willingly have handed over to anyone, let alone to cut the hair that he loved so much. She should have been surprised.

She wasn't.

Because Sarugaki Hiyori couldn't for the death of her remember a time where she hadn't trusted Hirako Shinji with her life. Like his odd obsession with human trinkets, it was one of the things she would never quite wrap her mind around. Having always been a rather distrustful creature, Hiyori couldn't even begin to comprehend why she trusted him as much as she did. It had always just seemed natural. Like breathing, however ironic that phrase was.

But inappropriate human expressions aside, she assumed it had to be that way for him too. Because no matter how many times she had joked about mutilating his hair with a dull pair of scissors or shaving him bald in his sleep, Hiyori knew Shinji would never have entrusted the task of cutting his hair to anyone _but_ her.

She didn't bother giving him a reassuring smile in the mirror, knowing he didn't need one and, most of all, that she didn't do reassurance very well. In stead she tightened her grip on his hair and let the sharp blade glide through it. And when it was done, and as the long golden locks belonging to the past tumbled down his back to land on the floor, she remained silent. The face reflected in the mirror was no longer that of Hirako Shinji of the Fifth Squad, the laidback captain with an undying fascination for the human world and its many oddities. The face that stared back at her, grey eyes as sharp and cunning as ever but with a short, cropped hairstyle she secretly thought suited him a lot better than his old one, was the face of the man that had become a leader of sorts to all of them. A man who would undoubtedly lead them into a whole shitload of dangerous and idiotic situations, but who would also see to it that they would one day get the retribution they deserved.

He smiled then, and if she'd had one, her traitorous heart would have skipped a beat at the sight of the shit-eating grin on his face. It was not the bitter half-smile he had adapted as of late – the one she would viciously pummel him to the ground for – but the ridiculous Cheshire-grin she hadn't seen since their expulsion from Soul Society. And as she watched him idly run his hand through his short hair, Hiyori decided that it didn't matter that their world didn't trust them anymore. Because the trust between them – the one that had existed for as long as they had known each other – would always be enough.

"Hmpf. Looks like yer one step closer to becomin' a real baldy, Baldy."

Shinji snorted, and responded by making a rather ugly grimace in the mirror.

And of course, some things would never really change.

Haircut or not.

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AN: The dynamics of the vaizards has always fascinated me. They're like this dysfunctional little family of weirdos, but they make it work.


End file.
